Gliding into Cape Town

      Part of the Public Health Cape Town Trip for me was to try different things that I have never done before, whether it was eating new foods or going to new places. Just coming to Cape Town was an adventure because I had only been outside of the United States once. In the first few days we were trying to decide what cool things we wanted to do while in Cape Town, a few of the things that were discussed included: shark cage diving, paragliding, bungee jumping, and sky diving. All of these possibililities sounded pretty terrible to me. I love trying new things, but I tend to stay away from activities where I think my life can be put in danger. But, as the weeks went along I felt that maybe I should put myself outside of my comfort zone and attempt one of these “thrilling" activities. A few of us who were up for it, decided to go paragliding off of Signal Hill and then we would land in Sea Point and get brunch there post glide.

To be honest, the scariest part of the whole thing was the waiting and anticipation. I was truly panicking, I swear I checked my pulse about five times beforehand. As you go through the other posts, you will see a picture from Karina and and it clearly depicts "the fear in our eyes". They told us we had to literally sprint off a cliff and if you weren’t fast enough you could fall and hurt yourself or if you hesitated, you could hurt yourself. I was very close to not doing it, but I saw my friends who went before me and they all did it just fine so I thought I didn’t come all the way here to chicken out  and if they could do it then I can probably do it too. Next thing you know, they are telling me to run and at that point it was too late to back out so I just ran off that cliff and I was in the air gliding above Cape Town. In hindsight, I am so glad that I did it. It was an absolutely amazing experience. I can’t even truly describe it, it was so much fun and the views were breathtaking to say the least. I’m just happy I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something that I would never have done in the states. Who knows maybe I’ll try skydiving next.

             

- Jasmine Okafor